Great points Monte..........

Just be aware 90% or higher of us on here know we aren't ever going to make a living at bracket racing, so we do our best, live with the results, and go back to busting rocks on Monday morning.
Personally, I have gone plenty of rounds, and won a little money here and there to boot, but to me it's all about getting a given combo to run as good as it can.
Even if bracket racing you get plenty of chances( time trials, opponent red lights, etc) to run the car out the back door and see how fast it can go.
Most everybody I know is constantly " pecking away" at the ET to make the car faster.
Even the OP, who I know well, is like that....... Long story short, lots of us like to compete and bracket racing is the most available platform for that..... But in many cases, we like to go as fast as we can while doing so.